All You Wanted [Lizzie McGuire]

chapter 2: self evaluation

Before bed, Gordo had set his alarm half an hour before school started and fifteen minutes before the bus would arrive so he could get more sleep. But right after Gordo shut his lava lamp off and tucked himself under the covers, he remembered that he rode the bus with Lizzie, even when he had rode the bus with her since they were in elementary school.

Gordo sat up, turning the lava lamp back on. He reached over to his clock and change the alarm back an hour to avoid taking the bus and, more importantly, avoid seeing love-struck Lizzie. Gordo's plan of action was to walk to school.

The walk was depressing because he pictured Miranda and Lizzie smiling and laughing on the bus without him. But he knew they were most likely talking about boys and, more specifically, Zack, so he cleared that thought right away.

Gordo was forty minutes early to school, and he arrived ten minutes before the bus. That gave him time to strategize the school day.

He had three classes with Lizzie, so it'd be impossible to avoid her there. In two of the classes, he sat next to her, so that'd be a struggle. But he could sit far away from her during lunch and take a different route, so he didn't pass her locker or ride the bus home with her. He could avoid her in those situations. It'd feel strange since he's used to spending the entire day with her, but he'd rather deal with that feeling than the new feelings he'd been experiencing ever since Zack Carter showed up.

To pass the time, Gordo hung out in the quad with a notebook and pencil. He jotted down the places Lizzie was often at in the school so he could remember not to go there. He also made a note of places Zack might be since Lizzie would be wherever he was. Finally, he wrote down all the safe spots: his home, depressing, gloomy, somewhat empty home. But more specifically, his bedroom. It seemed like the only place where he wouldn't run into Lizzie and Zack together.

Although there were quite a few students in the quad, Gordo felt lonely. Like he was trapped in his own world. A world where your best friend is falling for guys left and center and not telling you about it. A world where your parents are insanely busy, they can't have dinner with you or, in some cases, can't say goodnight cause you're already sleeping. And a world where everyone seems to be changing, and your the same lame kid who hacky sacks and helps people with their biology homework.

As Gordo pondered in the quad, he had this odd feeling deep in his mind and in his gut: like everyone around him, including his best friends, we're going to leave him. He didn't know where that idea came from, but lately, he felt distant from people; His parents, his friends, and even from himself, he felt disconnected. He felt different from who he had been the year before, in seventh grade. It was a bad difference—the kind of "bad different" like Kate Sanders when she became popular and stuck up.

No one had ever pointed out verbally to Gordo that he seemed different, but he felt it in himself. He self-examined his actions and behavior. (Must be the side affections of having Shrinks as parents.) He remembered it happened before Zack Carter arrived, and Lizzie got struck yet again by a stupid love bug.

Gordo stopped bothering people with useless facts and always telling Lizzie and Miranda to stop craving popularity and being like everyone else. There was no point in any of those things. No one cared about his facts, and his best friends never listened; they continued to crave popularity.

Another way Gordo noticed he was different was how he cared less about hobbies that used to give him satisfaction. He still wanted to do his very best in school, but he stopped spending every second studying. He lost interest in the Rat Pack, The Foo Fighters, and trying to be unique. The only thing that stuck was hacky sacking; it was his favorite hobby, which calmed him.

Gordo was changing, but not in the right way like his peers. He was becoming a person he couldn't recognize—a person alienating themselves from others as much as possible. And a person avoiding his best friend.